And certainly, if you did somehow come across one by accident anyhow, you aren’t expected to treat it with respect in and of itself. But I would think that the fact that you know other people care about it would at least give you pause.

The American flag isn’t anything but a bit of colored cloth: nevertheless, plenty of people would still be upset if you used it as a diaper, and you, knowing that using it thus would give otherwise unecessary offense, would I think at least consider the possibility that you should avoid doing nasty things to it unless you had a really good reason. You don’t have to invest anything in the flag yourself to appreciate that other people care about it.

I applaud you on your knowledge and understanding of Catholic dogma. Having attended 18 years of Catholic schools, I found your exposition of Catholic belief to be first rate. However, I do think that steeping yourself in the Catholic tradition has warped your sense of logic. For instance: when you say that the sacrament of Transubstantiation is akin to the President elect being “invested through a ritual with the powers of the Executive branch”. The Oath of Office doesn’t invest the President with any “powers”. It simply indicates his commitment to perform the duties of the office to which he was elected. I agree that he cannot act as President without making this commitment, just as I cannot use the services of many websites until I agree with the terms of service. Agreeing with the terms doesn’t invest me with any powers. And what’s this about the “intangible notion of Executive Power”?? The notion of Executive Power is spelled out in the Constitution! It’s about as “intangible” as my mortgage contract – subject to debate, perhaps, but certainly not a mystical, ineffable concept. It seems you’re much more cognizant of Catholic dogma than American civics. Or, as many atheists believe, that too much religion warps logical thinking.

Also: comparing the eucharist to a family photo is really not an apt analogy. A family photo is not meant to be consumed. In showing you the photo, there is no expectation that the photo will be affected in any way. A better analogy, I think, is when a family member makes a dish to be shared with others. I’m sure many of us have had the experience, usually around the holidays, of attending a meal where someone has spent hours preparing a particular dish. Perhaps the dish is made in accordance with a generations-old family recipe. Perhaps it’s meant to specificly evoke the memory of an ancestor. Now, all of us can anticipate Grandmere’s reaction to a cavalier “no thanks, I’m not hungry – I’ll just take some home for later”, but in no way can it be argued that taking one’s portion away rather than eating it there is equivalent to taking a family photo. By the same token: there was no expectation of the wafer being left at the Mass after being served to the student. So why the hoopla over what he chooses to do with something freely given to him?

The hoopla, some might say, is in the fact that others venerate this wafer. Fine. Those who do so should be very careful how they treat it. But I still don’t see what gives them the right to dictate the behavior of those who have different beliefs. It is understandably very important to you to behave in ways that will avoid pitting you into the state of existence that you define as hell. I find it absurd that those who don’t believe in that definition be expected to follow your prescribed mode of behviour. If you believe the wafer is the Body of Christ, you should certainly treat it like the Body of Christ. Why should I treat a wafer like anything but a wafer just because of your absurd belief? Maybe Cook just wanted his with a nice cheese dip.

Since there is ample anti-catholic history in this country is it any surprise that Catholics viscerally understand and react to that kind of talk? We can continue on about the actual issue but please no more straw men.

When you cite logical fallacies, it’s important that you explain why something is a fallacy. Anyone can just accuse.

And I don’t think your analogy holds in the least. “Strange fruit” is literally a reference to lynching people because of their race. Complaining that the ritual of communion is ridiculous because it’s akin to cannibalism if you actually take it seriously is a criticism of a specific belief, not a reference to any sort of threat. The fact that bigots once used it in the course of being bigots doesn’t in itself make it more or less accurate as a criticism.

But apparently, as far as you’re concerned, it just gives you an easy out when criticism comes up. The question is whether or not you have developed easy outs against all criticisms period, and this is just one example.

And anything that’s lasted 2000 years and is this ridiculous on its face has got to have a great many defenses around it or it would not have lasted.

I love this: if you have good arguments for something, and the doctrine makes sense, then you have good arguments. But if you don’t and if your beliefs don’t make any sense, well that just goes to show you how wondrously correct your beliefs are.

I’d love to run in a marathon modeled after this form of argumentation, where I somehow win no matter whether I come in first or last place.

Since there is ample anti-catholic history in this country is it any surprise that Catholics viscerally understand and react to that kind of talk? We can continue on about the actual issue but please no more straw men.

And Catholics are very well aware about how strange the Eucharistic celebration is to outsiders. The Bible chronicles that Jesus lost most of his followers on the spot when he unveiled the teaching prior to the events on Golgotha. It’s not supposed to be an easy thing to understand. And anything that’s lasted 2000 years and is this ridiculous on its face has got to have a great many defenses around it or it would not have lasted. A mere unenumerated suspicion, something with practically no specificity as to these unexamined implications does not get us very far.

You can derive from first principles that accusations of taboo behavior like cannibalism alienate the accused from normal society and make the accused the target of social disapproval, both in word and in deed.

Look, I don’t think the cannibalism thing is much of a retort to the practice, as I said, but you’re just getting lame here in your long efforts to pretend that US Catholics are at serious or imminent threat of actual persecution and harm, even if Myers and his hordes do steal or lie their way into a bunch of hosts (an activity of which they’d quickly tire in any case).

And frankly, just because a libel is old doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some merit. The reason people today, who are not in the Roman Empire, thanks, bring up cannibalism is that they suspect that Catholic theologians are basically trying to get away with all sorts of bold claims without confronting the rest of their implications. The only reason why cannibalism isn’t a good fit to the actual theology that the doctrine of the wafer and wine each turning into blood and body seems upon summary description is that the theology on this is nigh incoherent, and hence ultimately unintelligible. Otherwise, it would be a reasonable illustration of the absurdity of the belief, whether that particular connection be old or no, associated with past persecution or no.

1. When one enters a latin Catholic church and participates in the liturgy, there is generally a book, called a missalette which helps those participating understand what’s going on and how to not make asses of themselves. Generally on either the back cover or the first page there is set aside some space to explain who should, can, and cannot participate in the sacrament of the eucharist. Clearly Mr. Cook was in the can’t category and should have followed the plain english instructions and stayed in his seat during that section, just like any visiting Baptists, 7th day Adventists, or even Catholics who haven’t followed the rubrics to qualify for the sacrament.

2. There’s a really big set of ugly history regarding poorly catechized christians using religious symbols as tribal badges. Most relevant to the US is the Anglican/english v Catholic/irish wars. The Bishop of Westminster condemns the anglican orangemen who march in Catholic neighborhoods and shout about “Catholic whores” as well as hurling other insults. His condemnations have never made much difference, much as Papal condemnations of Catholic outrages at the honor of Anglican women. Blood often flows in the streets at such occasions and these tribal traditions remain a serious threat to civil peace in areas where this sort of thing happens. Mr. Cook, all unknowing (or perhaps not, I don’t know the man) crossed a bunch of red lines and it is a simple fact of life that there are poorly catechized Catholics in the US. They acted as asshats and embarrassed the Church when they pose death threats and otherwise threaten bodily harm. Better catechized Catholics have an obligation to clean up after such messes and consider this note my bit for that particular cause. Their poor catechization remains a shame for the Church but at least you know now where it’s coming from.

3. What is known as the Catholic Liturgy is two liturgies back-to-back, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Technically, if you are not on the ‘in’ list (Catholic, Orthodox, or any of the other qualifying impaired communion Churches) you’re supposed to leave after the Liturgy of the Word. This is logistically inconvenient and has been dropped in modern times in favor of trusting to good taste and shortening up things to their modern 1 hour time slots. Many Catholics would hate to lose these conveniences.

4. For the historically minded, an awful lot of the criticism, even the stuff uttered in comments in this thread, is just warmed over libels first uttered by the Romans as they were gearing up for their periodic anti-christian genocide attempts. Do you think that reviving ancient pre-pogrom talk isn’t going to get noticed and get Catholics agitated? Cannibalism? You guys think this is original? Try going over to your institutions’ Sociology or Linguistics or History departments and ask how loaded and dangerous that kind of talk is about anybody. And for extra credit ask how excusable is it to claim ignorance about the dangers. You can derive from first principles that accusations of taboo behavior like cannibalism alienate the accused from normal society and make the accused the target of social disapproval, both in word and in deed.

5. Authority in the Church is arranged orthogonally to anything you’re likely to be used to. Every consecrated priest has a personal calling from God. Disrespect that calling and you’re going to Hell. And this danger remains when the priest is otherwise a fairly worthless individual, a criminal, even a pedophile. God called them to do something, obviously not to diddle little boys but something and that has to be respected. At the same time there is this web of obedience that’s woven into the ritual of consecration for priests so there is real obligation upwards as well. It makes the mechanics of discipline, well, complicated. The Pope has moved, and he’s going at least as fast as it’s prudent and possibly a bit faster. For an intellectual greybeard he’s actually quite bold on the subject. It is possible that it’s been more than a century since a Pope publicly and repeatedly used the term “filth” when talking about his own consecrated priests and bishops. This Pope did. Unless you understand the reasons why this complicated authority web exists, it all looks pointlessly complicated but the real-world takeaway is that it cuts down on the bloodshed and we’d like to keep things that way, ‘kay?

B) Lots of rituals and beliefs are pretty bizarre, true. But cannibalism generally involves taking flesh off a dead body, not the transformation of something into a, well, whatever it is supposed to be when it transforms (Jesus’ “blood/body” in “reality” even if not empirically).

C) Irrelevant to this controversy, really, other than that it’s sort of offensive that Donahue apparently ranks not destroying a consecrated wafer as worse than child abuse.

B) The sacrament is the body of Christ? What other cannabalistic rites do they have in the catholic church. Are there any other people that Catholics can eat? The idea of any religion having a specific rite where they pretend to consume human flesh and blood is beyond bizarre! Really, think about it objectively.

C) The Catholic Church continues to minimize, obfuscate and deny their history of serial pedophilia. They continue to cover-up and be less than forthcoming about what happened and who was involved. I thought confession is good for the soul. Why has the Catholic Church been disinterested in owing up to their moral and legal perversions?

Drop the dogma and try and look at how these events affect actual people rather than the theoretical ones.

I agree that P.Z. Myers’ hijinks with a communion wafer is pointlessly rude….

I agree though, that calling this a “hate crime” is asinine.

spike

They teach people they are ‘fallen’ but don’t worry if you worship our imaginary friend and do our rituals and pay our churches the big guy will forgive you! And if you don’t we’ll break your kneecaps. Actually I just made up the part about the kneecaps. Christians are MUCH worse than the mob. They threaten you with eternal torture which is FAR worse than kneecaping you.